


Sunflower

by LacePendragon



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Implied Past Relationships, Implied Relationships, Missing Scene, Mostly Dialogue, Post Post-Credit Scene, post v5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 09:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17916317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LacePendragon/pseuds/LacePendragon
Summary: After the battle at Haven, Raven visits Taiyang. Neither is sure what the other wants. Neither is sure whattheywant.Nothing, and everything, has changed between them, since they last spoke.





	Sunflower

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've written in literal months. Be gentle.
> 
> Also, I always wanted to explore what this scene could have been, what happened after the credits faded. So, here you go.
> 
> Also: this features nb!Ozpin. As all my fics do. Mwahaha.

“Your daughter is headed for Atlas.”

Taiyang frowned, stepping away from his sunflowers and wiping his hands off on his shorts. He didn’t look, didn’t need to. If anything, he was disappointed in himself for not hearing the slice of the portal opening. Once, he’d been able to sense the change in the air when a portal opened, or the twist in the scents when Raven or Qrow changed from human to bird and back again.

These days, Zwei was his only early warning, and Zwei was asleep, inside.

“Our daughter,” he corrected. He turned, raising both eyebrows at Raven, who stood, her mask discarded on the ground, next to her feet, roughly ten paces from Tai. She didn’t look him in the eye, instead staring off into the distance, and one hand rested on the pommel of her sword, as if she were expecting an attack.

It was pretty much a toss-up, who would win in a fight between them. Her weapon, his semblance. Almost two decades of anger, frustration, and pain built up between them.

“Qrow tells me you’re still murdering people for powers you don’t need,” said Taiyang, folding his arms across his chest. “I would have thought, after Summer, that you’d know to keep a low profile.”

He couldn’t keep the annoyance out of his voice, not even if he’d really been trying. She didn’t deserve it, not anymore. The Raven who’d left was the same one he saw now. Stubborn, reckless, terrified, and cowardly. But now, he saw more: he saw anguish, he saw mourning. He saw what could only be described as loss, burned into her eyes and the lines on her face.

He’d told Yang he admired Raven, but really, he pitied her, most days.

The only time she appeared, anymore, was to visit Summer’s grave. Tai had never asked how she could still cut a portal to her, even in death. She’d never volunteered the information.

Raven grimaced and looked even further away, her hands clenching into fists. “Yang argued about it, too, when she realized.”

Tai shook his head. “I can’t believe you did it.” His words were soft, frustrated. “You killed an innocent woman to get _magic_.” His voice rose, almost to a shout. “You never wanted to be in the spotlight, Raven, but turning yourself into a Maiden certainly didn’t help with that!” He threw his arms in the air.

Raven growled, gaze finding him as her head swung toward his shouting. She bared her teeth, but her eyes were pain and exhaustion, not anger. “It was a mercy!”

“It was murder.” He clenched his hands against his biceps. “How much have you pulled that Qrow never found out about? You run a gang of _bandits_ , Raven.” He sighed. “You’ve probably murdered dozens, if not hundreds, at this point.”

Raven looked away, grimacing. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know more than you do,” he replied.

Raven’s body went limp, as if the only thing holding her upright was a string. “She’s headed to Atlas.” She closed her eyes. “She took the relic of knowledge and she’s going to Atlas with them all.” Now, she opened her eyes, her gaze finding Taiyang. Defeat clear in every inch of her. “Ozpin is travelling with them.”

Taiyang put a hand over his mouth to hide the grimace that forced its way into his expression. He looked away, closing his eyes tight against the turmoil that roared inside him. Oz had already reincarnated. They were already inside some poor fool, whispering in their ear and playing puppet master all over again.

Manipulating his kids, his _daughters_ , just like they had manipulated Qrow, Raven, and all of Team STRQ, back in their Beacon days.

“Damn it,” muttered Taiyang. He cast a look to Raven. “You’re sure?”

She nodded. “A kid. Probably about twelve. Didn’t catch his name.” She shrugged. “Oz seems to have the reins, most of the time.”

That poor child. Doomed to a life trapped within his own body, Ozpin at the helm. Damned immortal _freak_ that they were. Taiyang remembered the tricks. The magic. The power.

The day Raven and Qrow had had their humanity torn from their bodies, their souls encased in feathers and beaks. The wings, bursting from their backs, the beaks, ripping through their lips. The claws, the eyes, the feathers, all of it erupting and destroying them until the transformation was complete.

Tai still remembered how they’d screamed, that first time. How they’d feared the shift for months, afterwards. Feared that it would look and feel the same.

He remembered the way Ozpin had watched, stone-faced and silent, while Qrow and Raven screamed and bled on the carpet in their office. Oz had replaced it, afterward. Tai remembered that from being called into the office, weeks later.

He wondered what Oz had told the installers. If the workers had believed their lies.

“Are you going after her?” asked Raven, cutting deep into Taiyang’s thoughts.

He twitched, grimaced, and shook his head. “Yes… no. I don’t know.” He tugged his fingers through his hair.

“How can you not know?” demanded Raven, throwing an arm out to one side. “We can’t lose her, not to _Ozpin._ ” The sneer had Taiyang’s hackles rising alongside everything else she said.

“ _We? Her?_ ” Taiyang’s voice went tight. “Yang isn’t the only person Oz has!” He clenched his teeth and tried not to scream. Mostly failed. “Ruby is with them too, Raven.”

Raven’s face went blank. “Ruby isn’t mine.”

Taiyang growled. “Neither is Yang. Not anymore.” He jutted his chin at her. “Blood means _nothing_ to you, Raven. You proved that the day you walked away.”

“I had other family to take care of!” shouted Raven, throwing both arms out. “The family that _raised_ me.”

“And what were we?” Taiyang matched her tone, tears blurring his vision. “What was Qrow?”

“He made his choice.”

“A fucking impossible one, if you ask me.” Taiyang scowled.

“I didn’t.”

Taiyang gritted his teeth and forced himself not to stalk up to her and get in her face. She was taller. But he was bigger. Louder. He always had been. But this wasn’t a contest for volume. This needed words. Not meaningless screaming.

Not like the day she walked.

“You asked him to pick between his life with Summer and I, an honest life where he could help people as a huntsman, as an _uncle_ , and you, a life filled with crime and hatred and fear. A life he could spend hated and outcast for his semblance. His habits.” Taiyang tugged his fingers through his hair, chest heaving from the force of keeping his voice level as he spoke. “You asked him to choose between family. We didn’t.”

Raven growled. Tears prickled her eyes. They slipped down her cheeks. She wiped them away. Taiyang didn’t acknowledge them. Just stared.

“Are you going to Atlas?”

Taiyang scowled. Of course, she’d change the subject. That was what Raven did, avoid hard topics and conversations. Avoid people. Choices. Hell, it was a wonder her semblance _worked_ , considering the way she acted. It was a wonder she could still get to him. That her portals still worked, in this place.

Or maybe she’d cut one to Summer and flew here. It wasn’t as if they were far from one another, not anymore. Not ever again.

“I don’t know.”

“Why not?” demanded Raven, stomping a foot. And hell, she really was a mirror of Yang, when she got like that. Raven’s temper, Taiyang’s power behind it. A combination that was more terrifying than Taiyang liked to give thought to.

“James closed the borders. He called back his army. The borders are locked tight with his ships.” Taiyang folded his arms. “No one is getting in or out without a personal invitation.”

Raven snorted. “A fleet of ships? You could send them to the sea by yourself.” She mirrored him, folding her arms much more tightly. “You never needed help against Atlas. They can’t hurt you.”

“Maybe,” conceded Taiyang, thinking back to the early days of the Atlesian Knights. To a younger, brighter James, asking Taiyang for help testing them. His grumbling when Taiyang destroyed them. Taiyang’s platitudes, built mostly on how much longer they lasted, each time. Usually a few seconds. Once, almost a minute. Though he’d been holding back, and they’d both known it. “But that doesn’t mean I want to start an international incident.”

Raven rolled her eyes. “Politics?” Sarcasm. “Really?”

“Maybe I don’t want to hurt the soldiers. All the people in those ships have lives, Raven. Families. Dreams. They’re just doing their jobs.”

Raven sneered. “How many wars have been justified with that? ‘Just doing their jobs.’ Cut the bullshit. You and I both know Atlas could destroy the world, if it wanted.”

“James hasn’t started a war, he’s just preparing.”

“For what?” asked Raven.

“Salem! You know that!” Taiyang snarled. Raven jumped, and Taiyang took a moment to breathe, to centre himself. He couldn’t lose his temper. Longer fuse meant a worse blow-up, as Qrow was fond of telling him.

“She’ll come no matter what he does.”

“So, he shouldn’t try? He should just give up, lay down, and die?” Taiyang scowled. “Like you?”

“I’m still standing!” shouted Raven. “I’m alive!”

“Are you?” asked Taiyang. His words seemed to echo around them. Raven slumped, silent. “You may be alive, Raven, but you’re not living. You’re hiding.”

“And you aren’t?”

Taiyang frowned. “I walked away from Ozpin’s war years ago. I refused to let them keep destroying everyone I loved.”

“So, instead of fighting and failing, you’re letting your daughters do it for you?” Raven folded her arms. “Seems cowardly.”

Taiyang took a breath. Centered himself. Tried to focus on the good, instead of the bad. Instead of the terrified echo of a woman that stood before him. Tried to focus on who she’d been, who she might still have been, behind the fear and anger and the scheming. Behind the defense mechanisms she’d mastered while she’d been gone.

“You want me to destroy an armada. You want me to take on Atlas because you want to see it fall, not because you want me to protect my daughters.” He kept his voice and gaze level.

“This isn’t about me.”

“Yes, it is!” Taiyang’s voice rose. “It’s _always_ about you! You took magic because you wanted to feel strong. You left because you were scared. You run around like the world is out to get you, when really, the only one sabotaging you is _yourself._ ” He clenched his hands into fists. “If you weren’t a Maiden, Salem would have never come after you. You’d still be running around, slaughtering innocents.”

“It’s kill or be killed!” shouted Raven, throwing her arms in the air. A feather floated to the ground, soft amid the harsh.

“No, it’s not! You were the one who started it! You were the one who picked fights! Most people in Remnant just want to be left _alone_ , Raven. Why can’t you understand that?”

“She’s going to destroy us all.” Raven’s voice wobbled. “How can you be so calm?”

“I’m not.” Taiyang’s voice cracked. “I’m really not. But I try, for the sake my daughters and myself. I try to have faith that Ozpin, crazy as they are, will stop her. And I try to remember, every day, that I’m not meant for that fight, Raven. That it will destroy me long before I manage to be of any help. So, I stay here and do my part – I cook, and I clean, and I provide a home for those who need it. And I’m here, for my daughters, for Qrow, and, for _you_ , when you need it.”

Raven’s lip trembled. Tears gathered in her eyes. “What did we do to deserve you?”

“It’s not about deserving.” He stepped forward. She stepped back. He frowned. “I’m just doing my part.”

Raven’s expression shuttered closed. Eyes dark. Lips pressed into a hard line. The lines in her face aged her ten years. “They’ll die, in Atlas. If you don’t do something.”

“I guess I should pack, then.” He folded his arms. Raised an eyebrow. “Care to give me a ride?”

Raven shook her head. Stooped and picked up her mask. Settled it back in place. A Grimm mask, a White Fang mask. But she wasn’t faunus.

Or maybe she sort of was. How did you qualify magical shapeshifters, after all? Had Yang inherited the power? Tai didn’t think so, but he didn’t know. Not really. It was something only Ozpin could answer.

“She’s coming.” Raven’s words were low, defeated. Like a premature eulogy. “She’ll tear down the world to get what she wants, and that includes all of us. It’s everyone for themselves.”

“No, it’s not.”

Raven didn’t reply. She sighed. “Good luck, Taiyang.”

The portal cut into the air and Raven stepped through. Then, she was gone, and Zwei was scratching at the front door, whining to be let out.

Taiyang wiped away the tears that burned in his eyes and turned back to the house.

“You too, Raven.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are greatly appreciated!


End file.
